Dissident denied unused land

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct. 29 (Ángel Luis Bernabé, Isla Press / www.cubanet.org) – The request of dissident Carlos Manuel Pupo for 3.5 hectares (8.75 acres) of unused farmland has been rejected by the government.
Pupo, who has worked in food production in the municipality of San Antonio de los Baños in Havana province for the past 20 years, made the request last year. He said he was recently told, “There’s no land for you.”
The government has been accepting requests for unused, unproductive land.
Pupo is an organizer for the dissident Union for a Free Cuba.

Teenager arrested for possessing lobster tails
CAIBARIÉN, Cuba, Oct. 29 (Maria Caridad Noa Fernández, www.cubanet.org) - Police arrested Raidel García Corcho, 17, for possessing four pounds of lobster tails.
He was one of five persons riding in the back of a truck that was stopped by two police officers Oct. 25.
Police were going to fine him for illegal possession, but he insisted the lobster tails were a birthday gift from a fisherman friend.
Police confiscated the lobster tails and released García Corcho to his parents after three hours of detention.
131 pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in Havana

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct. 29 (José A. Fornaris, Cuba-Verdad / www.cubanet.org) - Statistics released by state media show that 131 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents in the first seven months of the year.
They said there were 6,767 traffic accidents in the capital of which 464 were caused by pedestrians, most of them by not paying attention when crossing the street.
Horse drawn transport in Villa Clara province was responsible for 16 accidents causing five fatalities.
Seized book prompts hunger strike

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, Oct. 29 (Indiana Rojas Laborí, www.cubanet.org) – Political prisoner Iván Hernández Carrillo started a hunger strike this week after guards confiscated a book given him, according to his mother.
Asunción Carrillo said she had taken to the Guamajal prison on visitors day Oct. 26 a book written by political prisoner Antonio Ramón Díaz Sánchez.
“My son refused to accept food and other books they left pass,” she said.
Hernández Carrillo, one of the Group of 75 arrested and sentenced in 2003, is serving a 25-year sentence.